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Introducing Smell-O-Vision! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
0:14
Speaker 2: Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry's here, and the three of
0:19
Speaker 2: us when you put us together, smell like cotton candy.
0:25
Speaker 2: Little known fact about Stuff you should Know.
0:29
Speaker 1: You know what? I gave my daughter cotton candy, first
0:33
Speaker 1: time she's ever had it, candy floss, just a couple
0:35
Speaker 1: of weeks ago at the zoo. I was like, you
0:38
Speaker 1: never had cotton candy. I was like, give me some
0:40
Speaker 1: of that. I want to see. I haven't had it
0:42
Speaker 1: in so long. And boy, it's just that the nostalgic
0:47
Speaker 1: blast of that stuff melting on your tongue. Did not
0:52
Speaker 1: enjoy it.
0:52
Speaker 2: I was like, Jesus, oh really, no, it's a gross
0:56
Speaker 2: web flavor. Was it like regular cotton candy flavor? Do
0:59
Speaker 2: they try to? Okay, the blue is the same as
1:02
Speaker 2: the pink. I don't like where this is going.
1:07
Speaker 1: We had a cotton candy machine as a kid growing up,
1:09
Speaker 1: A little do it at home deal.
1:11
Speaker 2: What yeah, okay, money bags?
1:13
Speaker 1: Yeah no, trust me, this is like a five ninety
1:17
Speaker 1: nine years item.
1:17
Speaker 2: I'm sure did you have the Snoopy Snowcome machine too.
1:21
Speaker 1: No. See, we couldn't afford that because I had a
1:22
Speaker 1: name brand. I think you and I were both very
1:25
Speaker 1: famous for having very unbranded childhoods.
1:28
Speaker 2: It's true, but we didn't have any kind of cotton
1:30
Speaker 2: candy machine.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, we were generic family kids.
1:34
Speaker 2: So what about your cotton candy machine and your kid?
1:37
Speaker 2: Did you overdo it? Is that what you're saying?
1:39
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I just wanted to throw that in there.
1:41
Speaker 2: I wanted to show off.
1:42
Speaker 1: I told Ruby that I had one when I was
1:44
Speaker 1: a kid. She's like, really, yeah, And I said, yeah.
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Speaker 1: It was gross and it only made white candy.
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Speaker 2: Oh so it didn't taste at all.
1:52
Speaker 1: No, just spin this. The taste doesn't come from the
1:55
Speaker 1: food coloring.
1:56
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's true. Should we talk about
1:59
Speaker 2: smell of vision? Yeah, okay, I forgot. We hadn't even
2:02
Speaker 2: mentioned it yet. We're talking about smellovision, which is exactly
2:05
Speaker 2: what it sounds like. It was a really neat, interesting
2:09
Speaker 2: gimmick that was tried in the beginning the advent of
2:13
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties. Most people say where they tried to
2:19
Speaker 2: accompany motion pictures with smells in the exact same way
2:24
Speaker 2: that they accompany motion pictures with sounds. That's right, Like
2:30
Speaker 2: you put sound in moving pictures together. It's just so intuitive,
2:35
Speaker 2: and it's come so far that the world that we
2:37
Speaker 2: live in, you can't really imagine it. Otherwise, even if
2:40
Speaker 2: you've seen the artist, it's still tough to imagine. Right.
2:45
Speaker 2: They were trying to do that but with sense, and
2:48
Speaker 2: this is the first attempt, and unfortunately it was not
2:52
Speaker 2: a very successful attempt, which is why we don't have
2:55
Speaker 2: smell a vision today.
2:57
Speaker 1: That's right. Dave old Pell helps us out with this,
3:01
Speaker 1: and this is kind of a fun surprise. One of
3:03
Speaker 1: our old house Stuff Works writers. Patrick didn't work in
3:07
Speaker 1: the office with this, but he was one of our
3:09
Speaker 1: longtime freelancers. Patrick Kaiger wrote a book like eighteenish years
3:14
Speaker 1: ago called Poplarica Colon a popular history of the fads, Mavericks,
3:19
Speaker 1: inventions and lore that shaped modern America. Yeah, and I
3:23
Speaker 1: think did such a good job with the smellvision section
3:27
Speaker 1: that La Times writer Martin J. Smith again like seventeen
3:31
Speaker 1: or eighteen years ago, wrote an article about smellvision and
3:34
Speaker 1: used Patrick's book a lot. So we also relied on
3:38
Speaker 1: this stuff, and it was I want to check out
3:39
Speaker 1: that book. It sounds cool.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very good article or chapter I guess
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Speaker 2: that they excerpted in. It's basically the definitive story of
3:48
Speaker 2: smell avision because it's such a it's such a narrow story.
3:51
Speaker 2: There's a few characters, and it happened in like this
3:54
Speaker 2: really narrow time frame. It's just it has a story.
3:58
Speaker 2: It's one of those those topics. It just has its
4:01
Speaker 2: own story, you know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And we'll get into the story story. But
4:06
Speaker 1: the first movie that they used it on that we'll
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Speaker 1: touch on later, was called Scent of Mystery, And you know,
4:13
Speaker 1: you get the idea. They would pipe in like you know,
4:16
Speaker 1: someone was smoking a pipe, they would pipe in the
4:18
Speaker 1: smell of tobacco smoke. Or if someone was like in
4:21
Speaker 1: a basement, they would pipe in some kind of dusty basement.
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Speaker 2: He smell mellow cadavers.
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Speaker 1: Usually it was something hopefully kind of nice, like there
4:30
Speaker 1: was a peach orchard in a scene, and they piped
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Speaker 1: in peach smells and things like that. But like you said,
4:36
Speaker 1: it was not a big hit at all. Yeah, I
4:40
Speaker 1: think Time did you mention that that Time named it
4:42
Speaker 1: one of the worst fifty inventions.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And This is along with DDT, Agent Orange and
4:48
Speaker 2: the baby cage. So that was that's really saying something.
4:53
Speaker 1: What else recently was on that list?
4:55
Speaker 2: Our live show? No, yeah, our live show the topic
5:00
Speaker 2: of our lives shows on the ideas of the century.
5:02
Speaker 1: I thought you meant our live show was one of
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Speaker 1: the worst inventions in the last fifteenth or the last
5:06
Speaker 1: hundred years. That was a good joke.
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Speaker 2: It was a good joke, unintentional but still pretty good.
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Speaker 1: Yes, you're right, our secret topic for the live show
5:14
Speaker 1: that you're exactly right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we just gave away that if you go look
5:17
Speaker 2: at that list of one hundred worse ideas of the
5:19
Speaker 2: century from time, you will stumble across our topic, but
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Speaker 2: you may not know that that's it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's not somemellvision. No, so then
5:27
Speaker 1: you narrowed it down a bit.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, now you've got ninety nine other chances.
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Speaker 1: So a company coming up with a signature scent is
5:36
Speaker 1: a big thing these days, Like we don't want to
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Speaker 1: underestimate scent as a as a sense because it's very powerful. Yeah,
5:46
Speaker 1: there are very famous signature scents of like hotels and
5:49
Speaker 1: stores and stuff like that. But as far as using
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Speaker 1: odor to tie it to entertainment. They were doing this
5:56
Speaker 1: in stage plays at least in the eighteen hundreds, and
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Speaker 1: I would bet before that even.
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Speaker 2: Sure, apparently they like theater owners would would basically do
6:07
Speaker 2: what they could to kind of make the whole scene
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Speaker 2: that you were seeing being portrayed just that much more
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Speaker 2: realistic by incorporating smell along with sites and sounds. Right,
6:19
Speaker 2: they didn't want you to touch the actors and you
6:21
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to lick the actors. So those were the
6:23
Speaker 2: three that they were allowed to work with. Yeah, and
6:26
Speaker 2: it's it's understandable why because I mean, if you think
6:28
Speaker 2: about it, like you were saying, like scent is a
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Speaker 2: very powerful sense that if you could tap into that correctly,
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Speaker 2: you could really blow someone's mind with a stage production
6:39
Speaker 2: and eventually a movie. And that was the basis of
6:41
Speaker 2: this whole thing. In retrospect, it was gimmicky, it's silly,
6:45
Speaker 2: it's mid century. Yeah, it has a name like Smell
6:49
Speaker 2: a Vision, But if you really dig down into the story,
6:51
Speaker 2: you find like this is a really earnest, genuine project
6:54
Speaker 2: that was meant to just completely transform filmmaking for the better.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean said earlier, they thought it was going
7:01
Speaker 1: to be the next revolution, like adding sound, which is
7:05
Speaker 1: kind of funny, like, this isn't something that appeals to me,
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Speaker 1: even though we'll get to four D later on and
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Speaker 1: talk about that. But the first movie theater to try
7:16
Speaker 1: anything like this in the United States was in Forest City, Pennsylvania.
7:20
Speaker 1: It was called the Family Theater and it was owned
7:23
Speaker 1: by Roxy Rothafel.
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Speaker 2: And ironically, it was a pornography theater, right.
7:29
Speaker 1: That was it.
7:31
Speaker 2: It is gullible day for you.
7:34
Speaker 1: That was the last episode, and I'm still gullible.
7:36
Speaker 2: Can you imagine a Triple X theater called the Family Theater?
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Speaker 1: That was the joke I was thinking from Roxy, like
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Speaker 1: triple X. I gotcha, and I totally missed it. I'm
7:50
Speaker 1: off my game.
7:51
Speaker 2: Hey, it's okay man. As a matter of fact, I'll
7:53
Speaker 2: just retract that whole thing.
7:55
Speaker 1: No, I get it. That's a great name for a theater, Chuck,
7:58
Speaker 1: the Family Theater now showing deep throat exactly all right.
8:03
Speaker 1: So the Family Theater was owned by Roxy Rothefel, and
8:05
Speaker 1: Roxy is someone we talked about in our Rocketes episode
8:09
Speaker 1: because this person would go on to open up the
8:13
Speaker 1: Radio City Music Hall and the Rockets were originally called
8:16
Speaker 1: the roxy Ettes, but in nineteen o eight he owned
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Speaker 1: the Family Theater and got a newsreel in nineteen sixteen
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Speaker 1: about the Rose Bowl Parade and said, Hey, I'm going
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Speaker 1: to pump the smell of rose oil into this theater
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Speaker 1: and fan it in there. And that was sort of
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Speaker 1: the first little attempt at something like this.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, I think that was kind of
8:39
Speaker 2: one of the things when they added like interior ventilation systems,
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Speaker 2: Like people figured out you can not only move air
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Speaker 2: around the theater pretty quickly, you can move sense around
8:49
Speaker 2: the theater. So in very short order, other theaters started
8:53
Speaker 2: trying the same thing. There was a theater in Boston
8:55
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty nine, there was a Detroit theater in
8:58
Speaker 2: nineteen forty three, and it just kind of sporadically was
9:03
Speaker 2: attempted at. But it wasn't until a guy named Hans
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Speaker 2: Lob That's what I'm going with, who was Swiss, who
9:11
Speaker 2: was an inventor and an osmologist, which is somebody who
9:16
Speaker 2: studies the science of smells. And it wasn't until he
9:20
Speaker 2: came along with somebody said I'm making this work. I'm
9:23
Speaker 2: going to make this happen and really like dedicated himself
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Speaker 2: to it.
9:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely. He had made his name removing smells. I'm not
9:32
Speaker 1: sure what chemicals he used.
9:34
Speaker 2: I was looking all over for it.
9:36
Speaker 1: Well, these days a use stuff like ozone, which.
9:38
Speaker 2: Is not good at all.
9:40
Speaker 1: Well, I tell you, man, someone stole our car like.
9:44
Speaker 2: Three years ago.
9:45
Speaker 1: I remember that and basically just joy road and wrecked
9:50
Speaker 1: it for a few days and it smelled like smoked
9:54
Speaker 1: three thousand cigarettes in the span of three days. Yeah,
9:57
Speaker 1: and we got that thing back and that's all the
9:58
Speaker 1: entrance company. I was like, man, I don't care what
10:00
Speaker 1: you do, We're not taking this car back. There's no
10:03
Speaker 1: way it's ever going to smell the same again, right,
10:05
Speaker 1: And they said, oh, we use an ozone treatment and
10:08
Speaker 1: it didn't smell like cigarette smoke, but it smelled funky
10:12
Speaker 1: after that, and we fought tooth and nail with him.
10:15
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, we can't drive around like this.
10:17
Speaker 2: Ozone has its own smell, and it's also super reactive
10:21
Speaker 2: and you don't want to breathe it in. Luckily has
10:23
Speaker 2: a very short like lifespan, but it's you don't want
10:26
Speaker 2: to be around ozone.
10:27
Speaker 1: Basically, No, that car is not in our family anymore.
10:31
Speaker 1: By the way, it had bad energy after that, so
10:34
Speaker 1: we didn't want any part of it.
10:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am, that's pretty understandable. I can totally see that. Yeah, so, yeah,
10:41
Speaker 2: I guess he was doing ozone too. That was what
10:43
Speaker 2: I came up with with that.
10:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was. He was using chemicals to remove odors,
10:48
Speaker 1: and then he said, hey, I could reverse this whole
10:50
Speaker 1: thing and add odors into movie theaters and debuted that
10:55
Speaker 1: idea at the thirty nine to forty World's Fair in
10:58
Speaker 1: New York with his partner Robert Barthis, and they had
11:02
Speaker 1: a thirty five minute fild called a film called My
11:05
Speaker 1: Dream or Mine Troum I guess it was in German,
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Speaker 1: and they had thirty two different chemical odors that they
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Speaker 1: pumped out during this thirty five minute film. Yeah, that's
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Speaker 1: almost a smell a minute. Yeah, And he called it scentovision,
11:20
Speaker 1: which is much nicer than smellovision for sure. I mean
11:23
Speaker 1: they're both kind of goofy.
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Speaker 2: Apparently it generally worked too. The New York Times, which
11:28
Speaker 2: would become one of the biggest critics I guess of smellovision,
11:35
Speaker 2: later on, endorsed it. This was back in the Yeah,
11:39
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty years before it actually was
11:42
Speaker 2: attempted in a feature film, but they said that they
11:45
Speaker 2: called it a smellie instead of a talkie, and they
11:49
Speaker 2: said that, you know, some of it worked. I think
11:51
Speaker 2: bacon didn't work very well, but incense worked really well.
11:56
Speaker 2: It was very convincing, and I guess they had the
11:57
Speaker 2: timing down and all that. But the projecttionist was actually
12:01
Speaker 2: running not just the film but also the scent emissions
12:06
Speaker 2: as well.
12:07
Speaker 1: He was chief wafter Yeah, all right, maybe we should
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Speaker 1: take a break. Oh, okay, and we'll come back talk
12:15
Speaker 1: about more smells right after this. All right, So how
12:40
Speaker 1: did you pronounce the name lob or lobby?
12:42
Speaker 2: Lob Lob.
12:45
Speaker 1: Had a semi successful debut at the Scent Division, but
12:49
Speaker 1: no one jumped on this, saying it was about ten
12:50
Speaker 1: years before anyone really cared to do any more exploration
12:55
Speaker 1: because of a funny thing that happened over the course
12:58
Speaker 1: of World War Two. Before the war, movies were a
13:02
Speaker 1: very big deal. After the war, movies were still a
13:05
Speaker 1: big deal, but TV had come along by that point, right,
13:08
Speaker 1: and sort of like the you know, theater owners now
13:11
Speaker 1: being worried about people just streaming everything at home. They
13:14
Speaker 1: were worried that people are just going to watch TV now,
13:16
Speaker 1: so they wanted to up the ante in the in
13:19
Speaker 1: viewing in person experience in the theater and smell a
13:23
Speaker 1: vision was one of those first ideas.
13:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did another one. I can't remember. I think
13:27
Speaker 2: the movie was called The Chiller, but the producer installed
13:33
Speaker 2: electric shocks into the movie theater seats from the patrons.
13:37
Speaker 2: I can't remember what he called it. It was like
13:40
Speaker 2: that age where they needed to do something that he
13:42
Speaker 2: just couldn't possibly do at home. And Michael Todd is
13:47
Speaker 2: he actually wasn't the guy who really was like, Okay,
13:50
Speaker 2: we're going to make this work. Michael Todd Junior was
13:53
Speaker 2: the guy who ended up making it work. But his father,
13:56
Speaker 2: Michael Todd Sr. Who I saw this random bit of
13:59
Speaker 2: trivia a website called in seventy millimeter dot com which
14:03
Speaker 2: is about the movie biz. Yeah, and he the author
14:08
Speaker 2: said that Michael Todd Senior, he was born Evram Hirsch Goldbogan.
14:13
Speaker 2: He was Polish and he adopted his son's name. So
14:17
Speaker 2: Michael Todd Junior came before Michael Todd Senior. Isn't that interesting?
14:21
Speaker 1: That is super interesting and very strange, But.
14:23
Speaker 2: The outside of it is. Michael Todd was a producer.
14:26
Speaker 2: He was at first a vaudeville producer, then a Broadway producer,
14:30
Speaker 2: and he eventually became a film producer.
14:32
Speaker 1: That's right, And he was he's best known if you've
14:37
Speaker 1: ever seen Todd AO. At the end of the film,
14:41
Speaker 1: he kind of helped pioneer the seventy millimeter format. Yeah,
14:44
Speaker 1: and and cinerama scope. It's a it's a widescreen format.
14:50
Speaker 1: It's it's probably a whole episode or short stuff on itself.
14:53
Speaker 1: But Todd AO as a company is still around, I
14:55
Speaker 1: think in some capacity. But a very sort of invent
15:00
Speaker 1: to enterprising guy basically. And like you said, he came
15:06
Speaker 1: knocking around Hollywood eventually after his Broadway run, and they
15:11
Speaker 1: right out of the gate had a very very big
15:13
Speaker 1: hit with a movie called Around the World in Eighty Days. Yeah,
15:17
Speaker 1: and almost used this movie as the big debut for Smellvision,
15:20
Speaker 1: but decided not to feel like kind of at the
15:22
Speaker 1: last minute.
15:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and very wisely too, because so Michael Todd Junior
15:26
Speaker 2: and senior, this is their first film production and they
15:29
Speaker 2: won the Oscar for Best Picture for that year nineteen
15:32
Speaker 2: fifty seven. It beat out Giant with Rock Hudson, James Dean,
15:37
Speaker 2: and Liz Taylor. Michael Todd was seated next to Liz
15:40
Speaker 2: Taylor because they'd just gotten married a couple months before.
15:43
Speaker 2: When his movie beat Hers for the Best Picture, they
15:47
Speaker 2: also beat Ten Commandments, So it was like a big
15:50
Speaker 2: deal that these essentially outsiders had just walked in, produced
15:54
Speaker 2: such a great movie and won Best Oscar. He didn't
15:58
Speaker 2: live very long after that. He died in a plane crash,
16:02
Speaker 2: I think the next year, in nineteen fifty eight. Yeah,
16:05
Speaker 2: but his son just carried on the mantle. They were
16:09
Speaker 2: like actual collaborators, so there was just no question whether
16:13
Speaker 2: Michael Todd Junior was going to continue on. But I
16:16
Speaker 2: get the impression that Junior was more into the idea
16:18
Speaker 2: of Smell a Vision than Senior was, because it wasn't
16:21
Speaker 2: until after Senior died that Junior said I'm gonna make
16:24
Speaker 2: this happen.
16:25
Speaker 1: That's right. So he got in touch with Loub and said,
16:29
Speaker 1: let's do this one movie. Let's give it a shot.
16:32
Speaker 1: It's gonna be called Scent of Mystery. We're gonna have
16:36
Speaker 1: all sorts of you know, something that kind of bugs me.
16:39
Speaker 1: I'm not a big three D guy. It bugs me
16:42
Speaker 1: when they do shots that you can tell, like when
16:44
Speaker 1: you see the two D version, it's like they did
16:46
Speaker 1: that thing coming at the screen clearly, just as a
16:50
Speaker 1: sort of like a three D gimmick.
16:51
Speaker 2: Like Friday the Thirteenth Part three did that a lot.
16:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean even modern three D movies do it
16:57
Speaker 1: a lot. I feel like they'll, you know, have a
16:59
Speaker 1: couple of shots there where it's like something is flying
17:01
Speaker 1: right at the camera and you're just in two D.
17:04
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, you know they did that just for
17:06
Speaker 1: the three D.
17:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have to say in that movie, they did
17:08
Speaker 2: a good job with it, like Kevin Bacon's playing with
17:11
Speaker 2: the yo yo and the shots from underneath and the
17:13
Speaker 2: yoyo is coming like right at you.
17:15
Speaker 1: Wait, he was in the first one, wouldn't he.
17:17
Speaker 2: He was in the third one. He's dude, he's the
17:19
Speaker 2: guy who does the I think he's the guy doing
17:21
Speaker 2: the handstand who gets like cut in half from the
17:24
Speaker 2: bottom up by Jason with a machete.
17:27
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought he's in the first one.
17:28
Speaker 2: I'm almost positive he's hand saying.
17:30
Speaker 1: Guy, handstand guy.
17:33
Speaker 2: Uh huh?
17:33
Speaker 1: Is that his credit?
17:35
Speaker 2: I don't know.
17:36
Speaker 1: That'd be pretty great.
17:37
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, he could have been in the
17:39
Speaker 2: first one, two's in everything of course.
17:41
Speaker 1: Oh well you don't. You're not in multiple ones unless
17:43
Speaker 1: you're Jason because you get packed.
17:45
Speaker 2: Up, right Jason or Corey Feldman?
17:48
Speaker 1: Right? Was he the one of us?
17:51
Speaker 2: He was in like five or six I think.
17:53
Speaker 1: Okay, I only saw a couple of those. Uh. Anyway,
17:56
Speaker 1: that's what they did with Scent of Mystery is they
18:00
Speaker 1: added all kinds of little gags in there to sort
18:04
Speaker 1: of take place to time out with the smells, which,
18:06
Speaker 1: you know, you can't blame them. If they're trying to
18:07
Speaker 1: debut this new thing, they wanted to, you know, really
18:11
Speaker 1: incorporate it, and they did in a big way.
18:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, they like they It was the first motion picture
18:17
Speaker 2: written to have smells associated with it. As we'll see
18:21
Speaker 2: later on, there was a picture that was kind of
18:24
Speaker 2: retroactively retrofitted with smells, but this one was like, we're
18:27
Speaker 2: going to have this smell come out at this part
18:30
Speaker 2: in the script, right, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, like we said, like,
18:36
Speaker 2: Lobe was a lob. I don't even remember how we
18:38
Speaker 2: sat his name anymore. He was a consummate inventor. He
18:42
Speaker 2: was fairly genius from what I could tell. And he
18:46
Speaker 2: had invented what he called the smell brain, which is
18:49
Speaker 2: like the center es central component of the smell of vision. Well,
18:56
Speaker 2: and we should say I think you said he'd called
18:57
Speaker 2: it centavision originally.
18:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:00
Speaker 2: One of the stipulations of his contract with Michael Todd Jr.
19:03
Speaker 2: Was that they were going to change it to smellovision, right,
19:06
Speaker 2: big diff Yeah, And apparently Michael Todd Junior was asked like,
19:09
Speaker 2: why didn't you change it to something more dignified, and
19:11
Speaker 2: he said, I don't understand how you can be dignified
19:14
Speaker 2: about a process that introduces smells into a theater.
19:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what you could call it. That
19:19
Speaker 1: isn't kind of cheeky.
19:20
Speaker 2: I think sentavision still worked. Yeah, I think it was great.
19:24
Speaker 2: But anyway, this smell brain was like the central component
19:28
Speaker 2: of the entire smell of vision process. I guess.
19:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is one of those things that you
19:36
Speaker 1: and I both I think, get kind of knocked out
19:38
Speaker 1: about mechanical solutions to things, and this was that exactly.
19:42
Speaker 1: It was a big box and had all these chemical
19:45
Speaker 1: vials with these scents in them, and that was attached
19:49
Speaker 1: to a belt that was attached to a motor, and
19:52
Speaker 1: it simply would as the movie plays, it's timed to
19:56
Speaker 1: queue up these these smells in sense and it would
20:00
Speaker 1: basically load up into place. The belt would rotate on
20:03
Speaker 1: que and then a needle is inserted into the vial
20:07
Speaker 1: and spits it into a fan that pipes it through.
20:11
Speaker 2: Uh.
20:12
Speaker 1: And this was sort of the key, I think. And yes,
20:14
Speaker 1: we'll get into more of this later, but it piped
20:16
Speaker 1: it into ideally would pipe it into vince that would
20:22
Speaker 1: not just go through the air conditioning or heating system
20:25
Speaker 1: or whatever, but under each seat, like miles and miles
20:28
Speaker 1: of this tubing.
20:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And that was, like you said, that's
20:32
Speaker 2: the key. Apparently it worked really really well. Michael Todd
20:37
Speaker 2: Junior gave Lobe a loub that's what we've been saying,
20:43
Speaker 2: and how distracting. He gave him an entire theater in
20:46
Speaker 2: Chicago to basically set up like a proof of concept,
20:49
Speaker 2: and it worked very well. I think he started working
20:54
Speaker 2: on it in nineteen fifty seven, nineteen fifty eight. There's
20:57
Speaker 2: real there's a discrepancy between when this whole thing miradors.
21:00
Speaker 2: We'll see either nineteen fifty nine or nineteen sixty. But
21:05
Speaker 2: before they could get it out to market in I
21:07
Speaker 2: think New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, they somebody beat
21:12
Speaker 2: them to it, right, Yeah, a guy named Walter Reader Junior.
21:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had Aroma Rama. Again, pretty cheeky.
21:21
Speaker 2: I think it's better than smell Avision. Yeah, I mean
21:24
Speaker 2: they're both.
21:24
Speaker 1: I mean, smell Division really fit that mid century age, you.
21:27
Speaker 2: Know, sure, so does Aroma Rama.
21:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think back then they both kind of went
21:31
Speaker 1: over pretty well.
21:33
Speaker 2: They're the kind of words with tail fins, you know
21:35
Speaker 2: what I mean.
21:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. This was in New York at the
21:40
Speaker 1: Demil Theater, and this is the one that you reference.
21:43
Speaker 1: He didn't actually make a movie from scratch to work
21:46
Speaker 1: with Aroma Rama. He bought the rights to a documentary
21:51
Speaker 1: called Behind the Great Wall. It was sort of a
21:53
Speaker 1: travel documentary about China, and he used his Aroma Rama
21:58
Speaker 1: in that way, and people did not like it. Critically.
22:02
Speaker 1: They they said it was a stunt. I think The
22:04
Speaker 1: New York Times said the smells were elusive, oppressive, or
22:09
Speaker 1: perfunctory and banal.
22:12
Speaker 2: This is not good. The same reviewer went on to
22:14
Speaker 2: say that that that the treatment in between smells that
22:19
Speaker 2: was meant to clear the air had its own sticky,
22:22
Speaker 2: sweet smell. That quote tends to become upsetting before the
22:26
Speaker 2: film has run its full two hours. And then when
22:29
Speaker 2: the reviewer left the theater, they happily filled their lungs
22:32
Speaker 2: with that lovely fume laden New York go zone. It
22:36
Speaker 2: has never smelled so good. So that's not really the
22:38
Speaker 2: review you're going for when you're releasing the first smell
22:42
Speaker 2: Avision or Aroma rama picture.
22:44
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and on the bad reviews of that, they
22:47
Speaker 1: even mentioned the upcoming scentse of Mystery HU, which is
22:51
Speaker 1: definitely not what you want when you're following up someone
22:54
Speaker 1: who had had jumped the line ahead of you.
22:56
Speaker 2: Right, they got a terrible review, like they got a
22:59
Speaker 2: terrible review by proxy.
23:01
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, exactly, so.
23:03
Speaker 2: You want to take a break and come back and
23:04
Speaker 2: we'll tell everybody about just exactly what happened when Sente
23:07
Speaker 2: Mystery premiered.
23:09
Speaker 1: Cliffhanger, let's do it.
23:30
Speaker 2: All, right, Chuck. So we're here. It's either nineteen fifty nine,
23:33
Speaker 2: it's nineteen sixty, and it's time for the Cente Mystery
23:36
Speaker 2: to premiere, and Michael Todd Junior's been talking it up.
23:40
Speaker 2: He has a famous quote where he said that he
23:42
Speaker 2: hopes people find it sensational. Here's that kind of guy. Yeah,
23:47
Speaker 2: and the film itself was apparently fairly well received. I
23:54
Speaker 2: was directed by a guy named Jack Cardiff who is
23:57
Speaker 2: a cinematographer. I think he was a cinematograph for black
24:01
Speaker 2: Narcissists if I'm not mistaken, and won an Oscar for it.
24:06
Speaker 2: But he said he signed on to this one because
24:08
Speaker 2: he said the script was very well written and really
24:11
Speaker 2: dramatized the smells, which is man, that's a press to
24:14
Speaker 2: her quote if I've ever heard one. Right there, I
24:17
Speaker 2: think he probably should have just said, like I needed
24:19
Speaker 2: the money. Can we all disagree on that being okay?
24:22
Speaker 2: But he directed it, and again it was a pretty
24:24
Speaker 2: cute little film. Daniel Melliott beloved actor who was Indiana Jones'
24:30
Speaker 2: mentor and the first couple I believe remember what.
24:35
Speaker 1: Was his name talking about Marcus.
24:37
Speaker 2: Yes, he played He was the lead in Scent of Mystery,
24:41
Speaker 2: Oh Crazy, Yeah, and Peter Laurie was his sidekick cab driver.
24:47
Speaker 2: And the whole thing is set in Spain. It has
24:49
Speaker 2: its own travel log kind of quality to it as well.
24:52
Speaker 2: So the first two Smelly Pictures were essentially travel logs,
24:56
Speaker 2: one in China, one in Spain, but the second one
24:58
Speaker 2: had like a kind of a mystery plots to with
25:01
Speaker 2: impostors and all that, and those with gags that you
25:04
Speaker 2: were talking about, Like they really had a lot to
25:08
Speaker 2: do with the movie, like the the twist or the
25:11
Speaker 2: way the solution to the mystery that Daniel Elliott figures
25:15
Speaker 2: out is based on a smell. He could tell that
25:18
Speaker 2: the woman he's talking to is claiming to be someone
25:20
Speaker 2: else is an imposter because she's wearing the different perfume
25:23
Speaker 2: and the audience is smelling that kind of stuff.
25:26
Speaker 1: Or that's kind of fun.
25:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, another guy's rooted out as one of the evildoers
25:31
Speaker 2: because of the smell of the pipe tobacco that he's smoking.
25:35
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot, you know, some of it was gratuitous,
25:38
Speaker 2: Like they did that whole thing like you were talking
25:41
Speaker 2: about where they pull fresh bread out of the oven, right,
25:44
Speaker 2: and I saw that they just shove it into the
25:46
Speaker 2: camera and the camera just stays there for a little
25:49
Speaker 2: while so you could get the fresh bread smell. But
25:53
Speaker 2: the they really kind of went to great lengths to
25:57
Speaker 2: make it so that the smells had some They weren't
26:00
Speaker 2: all just gratuitous. They really did have something to do
26:03
Speaker 2: with the plot.
26:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think some of that plot centric stuff could
26:06
Speaker 1: be kind of fun back then. Still don't know if
26:10
Speaker 1: i'd be into it today, But again, we'll get the
26:12
Speaker 1: four D coming up. The New York Times again was
26:16
Speaker 1: not too kind, had some pretty bad things to say.
26:19
Speaker 1: Patrons sit there snipping and snuffling like a lot of
26:22
Speaker 1: bird dogs, trying hard to catch the scent. And you know,
26:27
Speaker 1: it was just a big flop basically overall. And this
26:31
Speaker 1: is something I couldn't verify, but Hans Laub's daughter Carmen
26:36
Speaker 1: claimed that Michael Todd Junior cheaped out on the ultimate
26:42
Speaker 1: conversion into the other theaters by not taking it to
26:46
Speaker 1: each seat, which was, like we said, really, one of
26:49
Speaker 1: the keys is to make sure it's got to be
26:52
Speaker 1: timed just right, Like you can't have the scent piping
26:55
Speaker 1: in from an air duck twenty feet over your head
26:57
Speaker 1: that you smell in two minutes when scene is already
27:01
Speaker 1: long gone. And the real key was having it under
27:04
Speaker 1: each seat. And she claims that they didn't do that,
27:06
Speaker 1: and that's one of the big reasons why it failed.
27:08
Speaker 2: I saw kind of like indirect references that kind of
27:14
Speaker 2: support that claim that the first premiers flopped. But then
27:18
Speaker 2: they did some technical adjustments and they got it all
27:21
Speaker 2: figured out. So I'm wondering if they went in and
27:24
Speaker 2: did the tube band because they saw that they had
27:26
Speaker 2: really screwed up by trying to save a few bucks.
27:28
Speaker 2: The problem is the New York Times had already reviewed it.
27:31
Speaker 2: It was I mean, because it was a gimmick. People
27:37
Speaker 2: like to see gimmicks fail or I should say this,
27:39
Speaker 2: if a gimmick fails, people tend to find that satisfactory.
27:43
Speaker 2: If it's successful, awesome, it becomes legendary and we'd be
27:47
Speaker 2: having a completely different episode right now. But if a
27:50
Speaker 2: gimmick fails, people love jumping on it. Henny Youngman famously
27:55
Speaker 2: had a pretty great one liner. He said that he
27:57
Speaker 2: didn't understand the movie because he had a cold. I
28:01
Speaker 2: thought it was a great one liner. Apparently I'm alone here. Yeah,
28:04
Speaker 2: was all right, but it it just got smeared because
28:08
Speaker 2: people like smearing other people who try new things. Yeah,
28:12
Speaker 2: so it had a very very small window to be
28:18
Speaker 2: successful or not. Oh, it wasn't successful in that small window,
28:21
Speaker 2: and so that was it. It was a flop. And
28:23
Speaker 2: then that was it for Smellovision. And not only was
28:26
Speaker 2: that it for Smellovision, Chuck, that was it for Hans
28:29
Speaker 2: Lob and Michael Todd Jr. As well.
28:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, they canceled. They were going to expand to one
28:35
Speaker 1: hundred theaters. They canceled that order. Carmen Helnslob's daughter said that,
28:41
Speaker 1: you know, he basically died penniless. For worse than penniless,
28:45
Speaker 1: he died with debts. Even he did invent something that
28:49
Speaker 1: again didn't bring him riches, but sort of the beta
28:53
Speaker 1: version of what you would call a glade plug in
28:56
Speaker 1: or something today. Yeah, that was called best Air. But
29:00
Speaker 1: that didn't work, even though it was pretty ahead of
29:02
Speaker 1: its time.
29:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Michael Todd Junior went off. He didn't
29:06
Speaker 2: produce anything else. Apparently there were two other scripts that
29:10
Speaker 2: he trademarked. One was called Bumpkins Holiday, and the description
29:15
Speaker 2: I saw was that it's it was just a man
29:17
Speaker 2: riding a bus and that there was no dialogue of
29:21
Speaker 2: any kind. Wow, Like, what would that have been?
29:25
Speaker 1: Like?
29:25
Speaker 2: I would love to see somebody make that movie, because
29:27
Speaker 2: how would you even attempt to make that interesting? You know?
29:31
Speaker 1: And maybe he was just like with that title, I
29:33
Speaker 1: got to snap this thing up.
29:35
Speaker 2: Right, so that never got made. The other one was
29:37
Speaker 2: called Creature from the Bronx. That never got made either,
29:40
Speaker 2: so he never produced another movie again. I don't know
29:44
Speaker 2: if he died broke pennyless and with debts. I think
29:47
Speaker 2: kid some incomes still from right, I'm saying like Hans Low,
29:51
Speaker 2: But I'm saying I don't think Michael Todd Junior did
29:53
Speaker 2: oh and his career petered out, I think, is how
29:56
Speaker 2: I saw it described.
29:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's sad. A couple of films have gone
30:02
Speaker 1: on to do something like this later on. John Waders
30:05
Speaker 1: was very famous for his nineteen eighty one film Polyester
30:10
Speaker 1: in Theaters coming with a little scratch and sniff card
30:13
Speaker 1: that you would use, very very funny and kitchy. Obviously
30:18
Speaker 1: John Waters is going to do something fun like that.
30:20
Speaker 2: But what sense were they well.
30:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Fart was a very famous dirty
30:26
Speaker 1: shoes skunk. It wasn't you know, Peaches and Lilac right exactly.
30:32
Speaker 1: And then the Rugrats Go Wild movie, as in homage
30:36
Speaker 1: is what they called it, did the same thing in
30:38
Speaker 1: two thousand and three with their film, And then there
30:42
Speaker 1: have been more modern stabs at this in the way
30:45
Speaker 1: of four D.
30:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dave, I think we said at the outset helped
30:50
Speaker 2: us out with us and he mentions the first four
30:53
Speaker 2: D movie theater ever created was called the Censorium. It
30:57
Speaker 2: was located at six Flags power Plant Amusement Park in Baltimore,
31:02
Speaker 2: which I think now is like called power Plant Live
31:05
Speaker 2: or something like that.
31:06
Speaker 1: That sounds about right.
31:07
Speaker 2: It was like Buckhead in the nineties, jammed into like
31:10
Speaker 2: one call building from what I can tell. But back
31:13
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four they opened the Censorium and Dave
31:16
Speaker 2: said he went there and like the seats moved and rumboled,
31:19
Speaker 2: and they hit him with popcorn smells and stuff like
31:22
Speaker 2: that sprayed with water to simulate rain, I believe, And it,
31:27
Speaker 2: just like with smell Avision with Hans Loeb and his
31:30
Speaker 2: attempt at the World's Fair, is basically proof of concept
31:33
Speaker 2: of the World's Fair. Nobody did much with it after that.
31:37
Speaker 2: Six Flights closed in nineteen ninety until twenty years later
31:42
Speaker 2: when South Korean company came up with the forty X
31:46
Speaker 2: and that's still around today.
31:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the next wave. I have not
31:51
Speaker 1: tried it out yet, Like you said. At premiered in
31:53
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine in South Korea. There are twenty
31:57
Speaker 1: one effects, so it's not just it's like kind of
32:01
Speaker 1: what Dave experience. It's got Your seats are moving and
32:04
Speaker 1: rubbling and rocking back and forth. Seatbacks can like punch you.
32:09
Speaker 1: They'll be fog or cold or hot air, and plenty
32:14
Speaker 1: of smells. And there are close to eight hundred of
32:16
Speaker 1: these theaters opening. I'm sorry operating in the world today.
32:21
Speaker 1: I have not gone. I want to try it out.
32:24
Speaker 1: I don't think. I just want to see what it's like.
32:26
Speaker 1: I can assure you I probably won't like it, right,
32:31
Speaker 1: But I will say that this podcast that I guess
32:34
Speaker 1: is on is really great. I've mentioned it here before,
32:35
Speaker 1: called Too Scary, Didn't watch. It's these three girlfriends who
32:42
Speaker 1: one of them loves horror movies, the other two hate them,
32:45
Speaker 1: but they want to know what happens. So she watches
32:47
Speaker 1: in them and recaps them and it's a really fun show.
32:50
Speaker 1: And Sammy Smart is one of the co hosts, who
32:54
Speaker 1: is a great name. Yeah, Sammy's great, and she watches
32:57
Speaker 1: these movies. The horror movie She's one of the watches
33:00
Speaker 1: him and she went to four d X for the
33:04
Speaker 1: Top Gun movie, and she said she had a blast it.
33:08
Speaker 1: Really yeah, Samy, someone who like who's judgment and opinion
33:13
Speaker 1: I value. So just based on that alone, I'll give
33:17
Speaker 1: it a shot. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
33:21
Speaker 1: try out forty X.
33:22
Speaker 2: So that my source, which is a Quartz article called
33:26
Speaker 2: I watched Batman versus Superman at a forty theater so
33:29
Speaker 2: you don't have to by Adam Epstein, all right, it's
33:32
Speaker 2: basically the opposite. He was saying that, like there's a
33:35
Speaker 2: part where some character gets shot in the back and
33:38
Speaker 2: his seat punched him in the back for some reason.
33:42
Speaker 2: He said his hair was just kind of wet for
33:43
Speaker 2: some reason. All the well, I'm just saying, like like
33:46
Speaker 2: getting punched, Like why would you want to simulate that?
33:48
Speaker 2: You know?
33:49
Speaker 1: Oh well, I think that's the whole deal.
33:51
Speaker 2: His his point was this, this is the upshot, as
33:54
Speaker 2: as he would have probably said it to you or me.
33:58
Speaker 2: It did the opposite of pulling him into the movie.
34:01
Speaker 2: They were reminded of exactly of where he was at
34:03
Speaker 2: every single moment and now interested him from getting into
34:07
Speaker 2: the movie itself. Okay, yeah, he yeah, he didn't really
34:13
Speaker 2: like it at all, And from what I've seen, basically
34:15
Speaker 2: every review is similar to that, except for apparently Sammy's
34:18
Speaker 2: Smart's review.
34:20
Speaker 1: Well, I think Sammy, I don't think shit was a
34:22
Speaker 1: full throated endorsement. I think it was like she'd said,
34:25
Speaker 1: I had a really good time at this movie and
34:29
Speaker 1: this experience I gotcha cool, which is different sometimes than
34:33
Speaker 1: saying like this is awesome in the next way you.
34:35
Speaker 2: Know, right, I'm with you, But it's hanging on hanging
34:38
Speaker 2: in there.
34:39
Speaker 1: It is. And there's a you can get this in
34:41
Speaker 1: your home now. There's a company from Spain called Ola
34:44
Speaker 1: Rama that will sell you. It's a sort of a
34:49
Speaker 1: two foot but it looks like about one foot box
34:51
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a box fan, right, and you
34:54
Speaker 1: can load up to twenty smells I think for the
34:56
Speaker 1: basic fifty five hundred dollars package, and it does the
35:01
Speaker 1: same thing. It syncs up with your movies through software,
35:04
Speaker 1: and I think you can go all the way up
35:06
Speaker 1: to like twenty grand if you want a forty smell version,
35:09
Speaker 1: and you can put it in your home theater.
35:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of the I Smell peripheral. Remember
35:15
Speaker 2: we talked about the old Apple peripheral that never took off.
35:17
Speaker 1: That's what it was, plugged into your computer and did
35:20
Speaker 1: the same thing.
35:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got about that. I have one more things.
35:24
Speaker 2: You'll allow me, oh please. So they went back and
35:28
Speaker 2: they kind of I don't think they'd made any edits whatsoever.
35:32
Speaker 2: They just retitled the send of Mystery into Holiday in Spain,
35:37
Speaker 2: it's not called sent a Mystery anymore. And they took
35:40
Speaker 2: away the smelly parts. But because they'd written the script
35:44
Speaker 2: around smells I saw A Daily Telegraph reviewer said it
35:48
Speaker 2: took on a baffling, almost surreal quality in some parts,
35:53
Speaker 2: like where the bread is pulled out of the oven
35:56
Speaker 2: and then just kept in the middle of the screen
35:57
Speaker 2: for all interesting.
35:58
Speaker 1: It became like an art film.
35:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it just it didn't make sense anymore. I
36:02
Speaker 2: thought that was a great description of it. I want
36:05
Speaker 2: to see it now.
36:05
Speaker 1: Maybe I should watch it.
36:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got anything else?
36:09
Speaker 1: Maybe we should watch it together and we should just
36:12
Speaker 1: provide each other with surprising smells.
36:15
Speaker 2: Oh that's a great idea, you know. Yeah, that's a
36:18
Speaker 2: fantastic ed let's give it.
36:19
Speaker 1: Ah, it don't sync up, you know, like the bread
36:21
Speaker 1: comes out of the oven and that's when I do
36:23
Speaker 1: like motor oil or something.
36:25
Speaker 2: He just tells me with old used motor oil. Yeah,
36:29
Speaker 2: I'm like, that smells terrible. It would be fun, let's see. Yeah,
36:34
Speaker 2: I think we are already asked you if you got anything else.
36:36
Speaker 1: Right, I got nothing?
36:37
Speaker 2: Okay, So since Chuck said he's got nothing, that means
36:40
Speaker 2: time for a listener mail.
36:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one just a very nice thank you. Hey, guys,
36:46
Speaker 1: been listening to the show for about ten years now.
36:48
Speaker 1: I want to express my gratitude. I've always enjoyed your
36:50
Speaker 1: down to earth, humorous, clever, and intentional approach to the podcast.
36:55
Speaker 1: I love learning about the stories, events and concepts I've
36:57
Speaker 1: never heard of. We're hearing a more detail look at it.
37:00
Speaker 1: I never would have thought to explot further. I realize
37:03
Speaker 1: that your podcast has been with me through several milestones
37:06
Speaker 1: and difficult life events, grad schools, starting my career, grief,
37:09
Speaker 1: and now through my first year sobriety.
37:12
Speaker 2: Wow.
37:12
Speaker 1: I work as a music therapist in a pretty high
37:14
Speaker 1: strung environment, so I always appreciate how the show helps
37:17
Speaker 1: me to take my mind off things. I quite literally
37:19
Speaker 1: can't fall asleep without listening to a stuff you Should
37:21
Speaker 1: Know episode old or new. And that's not because it's boring, Guys.
37:24
Speaker 1: I often use listening the car and on walks as well,
37:27
Speaker 1: but something about the show helps to bring a sense
37:30
Speaker 1: of openness and appreciation for life that helps calm my mind.
37:34
Speaker 1: So thank you to Josh and Chuck in the SYSK crew.
37:37
Speaker 1: And that is from Emily.
37:38
Speaker 2: Thanks Emily. Yes, we take that as high praise that
37:41
Speaker 2: we help people fall asleep. I agree. If you want
37:46
Speaker 2: to get in touch with us and let us know
37:47
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37:49
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37:53
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